I’m not a big fan. I pretty much consider them a waste of money - especially between people who see each other regularly. Such as members of a couple. They are kinda nice to receive in the mail from someone at a distance, but after reading them, maybe having them out for a week or so, I’m happy to toss them. No need to keep them as I’ll never look at them again.
My wife OTOH very much likes them. Which is no big deal. I finally figured that out (only took me 35 years!), so I go out and pay a few bucks on a piece of cardboard.
How about you? Do you give/send cards? On what occasions? Do you keep ones you receive?
When I receive a greeting card, I read it once and then throw it away (unless it was for some really memorable occasion, like a card signed by my co-workers when leaving a long-term job). My wife, on the other hand, has a superstitious aversion to throwing away Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc.
One of my aunts used to hand-paint her own cards; I like those ones and I keep them on display.
I keep very few. If no one’s looking at me when I read it, it usually goes directly in the recycle bin.
I’m not rude though…if someone’s beaming at me while I read the card they sent, I thank them and prop it up somewhere for a couple of days.
I can’t recall the last time I bought or sent one, but I know I got a couple on my birthday in January from my mom and MIL. In my youth, pre-social media, I would hold on to cards from certain people for a long time. Heck, I kept the Valentine Craig T. gave me in 5th grade for the longest time!!!
I guess I kind of like them, but they put me in an awkward position. I don’t want to throw them out, because that seems rude, but then, well, what do I do with them? In practice, they just end up in a pile of clutter on my table, and then eventually get thrown anyway out the next time I tidy up.
I don’t like them, giving or getting. They are SO expensive . . .$5? $7? It seems insane to pay $7 to hold a $25 gift card or similar priced gift. I’d rather give a bigger gift! I also find the messages trite and find shopping for them stressful because it’s so hard to find the “right” one. And then there is the clutter issue.
Some years ago I figured out that for the same money, I could buy an oversized fancy candy bar, and generally now if I am giving someone a gift card, I tape it to one of those.
I will still buy greeting cards to be circulated and signed in certain circumstances, because society doesn’t have anything really equivalent for a group to express collective concern or happiness.
Now, thank you cards are completely different. Over the years I have received and written hundreds, nay, literally thousands, of thank you cards with actual notes inside. Those are completely different. They are inexpensive, generally, and they express sincere emotion.
What a miserable bunch you all are! I think they’re nice - it takes a lot more effort than sending a message on WhatsApp, and I think shows thought.
I had one just the other day from a friend I haven’t been able to see since lockdown. Just a nice message along the lines of ‘miss you, can’t wait to see you’ and that’s stuck in my mind a load more than however many video conversations I’ve had along the same lines.
I keep greeting cards up for a week or two, keep the ones that are really meaningful in a sort of ‘memories’ box of old photos, and put the rest into the recycling. But that’s ok, they’re no diamond rings.
I send cards for birthdays and special events but not for any of the non-personal stuff - Christmas, Mother’s Day etc.
I always choose blank cards and write my own message. It’s fun finding one with a picture that links to a written sentiment that you wish to express.
When I used to get Christmas cards I would save them until the next year, then reverse my name and the sender’s name and send it back, with their message unaltered, to whoever sent it to me. It took some of my friends years to stop sending them.
So how about someone you see regularly? Like today is my wife’s birthday. She would have been very disappointed if I hadn’t braved the plague to spend $7 on a piece of cardboard.
For me, it’s sufficient for my wife to say, “Happy birthday” when we wake up. No card needed/desired.
I AM a fan of SOME recognition. Tho I don’t particularly care for e-cards, they beat silence. One of my 3 kids is HORRIBLE about such things. Our relationship is fine - he apparently just doesn’t think it important enough to even send a text on birthdays, father’s day, holidays, etc. I find that mildly disappointing (but if that is the WORST of my problems…) With today’s phones and computers, I’d think it would be damned simplistic to program reminders and then just send a pro forma text on or around the date.
I only do greeting cards if I’m mailing a gift card to someone. But I refuse to pay $5 for one. The dollar store has Hallmark greeting cards for $1 (some of them are 2/$1). I don’t save any cards that I’m given unless a kid made it for me. Years ago, I’d save all of the cards I, my husband and kids received. A couple of years ago I went through some boxes in the basement. I must have thrown out (recycle bin) thousands of dollars worth of old greeting cards. I saved some special ones but not many.
I tell my husband DO NOT give me a card whether it’s my birthday, Valentine’s Day or our anniversary. I know he would buy the biggest most expensive card he could find. I’d rather he gave me the $5 cash!
I don’t generally don’t keep cards I receive. I also avoid giving cards that have generic sentiments or are likely to be given for the same reason across thousands of people.
The one exception I make is that every Christmas I pick out All Occasion cards from Borealis Press for my immediate family, a separate card for each family member, picked to have some relation to that person.
For example, here is the card I gave my niece on Christmas the year before her university graduation:
The only problem is that after about 15 years of doing this, I’m starting to run out of new cards to pick (and forgetting the ones I’ve already given)
Getting a card would mean something to me, if it’s a “friends across distance” situation. However…
I got divorced 6 years ago, and tried really hard to keep in touch with friends. The first year I sent cards to every couple-friend from my marriage that I could. I understood if I didn’t get a card back – they didn’t know where I lived since the split. The next year I did the same, and… goose egg. I got a card from my dentist and a real estate agent. I duly sent cards the next year, same thing. Sigh. I had tried being in touch other ways, but found that that just doesn’t happen after divorce. You lose all your couple-friends. I sent no more cards after that.
Meanwhile, my son, 21, has yet to send me even a christmas or birthday card. I’ve made it clear it’d be nice if he did, five years in a row.
I am a “keeper,” quite a packrat, and I keep all my birthday and Christmas cards, going quite a way back. (I’m no spring chicken!) I like receiving 'em, and I enjoy keeping ‘em. Scrapbooking. (It’s not a hobby, it’s an obsession!) But far and away my faves are hand-made originals, and my 2nd fave are computer-made originals, like when you use Google to find some cute clip art. Regular ol’ store-boughten “Snoopy” or “Garfield” cards are really low on the evolutionary ladder.
Cards with “Hi You! / Greeting / Love, Me” go in recycling.
Replace Greeting with a few sentences or paragraphs, I’ll keep the card. My grandmother sent me cards with a separate piece of paper for the letter. The card went in the recycling, I still have the letters.
When she was cleaning out her house she gave me the letters I had sent her. Interesting to see what I wrote when I was 10 years old.
I keep them. Too many, I know, but I don’t want to lose the sentiments or the notes.
I was going through boxes of paperwork that needs to be destroyed and found the invitation to my best friend’s wedding shower from about 30 years ago. About a month after her husband died. If I had thrown it away, that’s a memory I couldn’t recover.
I like to get them from my husband, because that shows he spent undivided time and thought on me. He doesn’t just pick any card; he reads them all before choosing. Just saying “Happy birthday” could be done without much consideration.
It depends. Ordinary cards with a generic greeting that look like they were sent mainly out of a sense of obligation go in the recycling.
If the card is either a) particularly interesting or unique in some way, or b) has sentimental value for some reason, then it will get saved. The weird European birthday card my sister sent me from Germany one year, with a cartoon drawing of a cake, with a sheep sitting on the cake, and a sigh that says “Hurray” sticking out of the sheep, and also the sheep’s nose is a flower – that’s an example of the former.
